AstraZeneca aims to outsource its manufacturing

LONDON AstraZeneca is planning to outsource its entire drug manufacturing activities within 10 years. The goal of the company according to executive vice-president of operations David Smith is to become a pure research, development and marketing organization, the TimesOnline reported.

The company is attempting to cut costs in connection with the money it believes it will lose when patents of its drugs start expiring over the next five years. Over that period of time, the company is set to lose 38 percent of its revenue due to the loss of patents to Arimidex, a breast cancer drug, Seroquel, a schizophrenia drug, and Symbicort, an asthma medicine.

The company has 27 manufacturing sites in 19 countries and plans to cut 7,600 jobs.

GSK flu vaccine facility in Quebec is nearly completed

QUEBEC CITY, Canada GlaxoSmithKline said that it is near completion of its Quebec City manufacturing facility, used to develop the company’s influenza vaccine.

After a two-year—and $199 million—investment to upgrade the manufacturing site, the location will increase the capacity of vaccine doses to 75 million per year, the company said. The expansion has also given way to providing this facility, and existing ones, new equipment and other innovative technologies to assure efficient production.

The company has also doubled the size of its vaccine workforce in Quebec City since January 2006.

“[This] announcement reinforces the key role that both Quebec and Canada play in GSK’s global vaccine business,” said Michel Baijot, vice president of Worldwide Strategic Alliances and Business Development, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, the company’s vaccine division. “Through this investment, Quebec and Canada will have an impact on global health by supporting countries in their influenza pandemic planning.”

According to GSK, the company supplies about 75% of the Canadian government’s seasonal flu vaccine purchases and will also provide Canada with a pandemic vaccine in the event of an influenza pandemic.

FDARA attempt to limit citizens petitions not likely to have much effect, expert claims

WASHINGTON According to Richard Silver, senior vice president of Equity Research for Lehman Brothers, the Food and Drug Administration’s Revitalization Act, which included language intended to limit the use of citizen petitions to block approvals of generic drugs, will not stop their use by brand companies, the FDA reported.

“Citizen’s petitions … we do not think they’re going to go away. The backlog continues to grow,” Silver said last week during the Generic Pharmaceutical Association’s Annual Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. “We don’t think the citizen’s reforms will change the behavior of brand companies significantly.”

Two versions of the legislation are currently pending before a conference committee.

RELATED NEWS

The workshops, sponsored by McKesson, have been offered by the Alexandria, Va.-based organization for more than 20 years and are slated to take place June 8-10 in Denver, Colo., and Oct. 4-6 in Boston.

Forgotten Password

Registration complete

REGISTER

USERNAME *

Spaces are allowed; punctuation is not allowed except for periods, hyphens, and underscores.

E-MAIL ADDRESS *

A valid e-mail address. All e-mails from the system will be sent to this address. The e-mail address is not made public and will only be used if you wish to receive a new password or wish to receive certain news or notifications by e-mail.

Password *

Confirm Password *

Please choose a password for your account; it must be 8 - 30 characters. .

First Name *

Last Name *

Company Name *

Job Title *

ZIP *

Country *

Are you a *

Retailer or Healthcare professional

Non-Retailer

How many stores do you operate?: *

Which best describes the business/industry you work in?: *

Which best describes your job title?: *

Please select the newsletters you would like to subscribe to

DSN A.M.
Daily news stories covering the retail drug industry

Breaking News
First-to-the-market with developing stories in the industry